


Forget-me-not

by torestoreamends



Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Malfoy Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8590198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torestoreamends/pseuds/torestoreamends
Summary: There’s a type of Forget-me-not known as Scorpion Grass, and it grows on the banks of the river that runs round the edge of the Malfoy Manor grounds. Forget-me-nots are supposed to help you remember people after they’re gone, and sometimes Scorpius needs help remembering.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on PlatinaSi‘s [beautiful art](http://plati-arts.tumblr.com/post/153126196302/quick-watercolory-doodle-of-scorpius-with) of Scorpius with forget-me-nots in his hair, and [ohscorbus's](http://ohscorbus.tumblr.com/) tag ramble about forget-me-knots and Scorpion Grass in her tumblr reblog of the art. The pair of them are entirely to blame for this fic. 
> 
> Many thanks to Abradystrix for giving this one a look over.

The river bursts its banks in April. Unrelenting showers make the water muddy and swollen, so it floods the paths and seeps into the forest undergrowth. It never reaches the house but bits of the garden are soggy and drowned in brown puddles. Scorpius likes to kneel on the window seat in the school room and gaze out at the grey grounds, imagining all that water rising up and surrounding the Manor, sweeping it away out to sea.

There’s not much to do when the weather is this way. He reads a lot, like he always does, but sometimes he gets restless and wishes he could go out. Twice his dad tells him off for running up and down the upstairs corridor. He’s supposed to be quiet at the moment so his mum can rest. She’s just got back from hospital again and she isn’t very well. Scorpius has begun to wonder whether his mum will ever be well, but the idea of something happening to her is too awful to comprehend so he tries not to think about it. He runs up and down the downstairs corridor instead, and his dad doesn’t tell him off for that.

At the beginning of May the sun comes out and the grounds begin to dry up. Everything is still a bit damp, but the garden is less swampy and the river retreats. One morning his mum comes and finds him in the library. She looks a little better, still thin and pale, but she smiles at him, as bright as the vivid spring sunlight flooding the room.

“What are you reading?” She asks, walking over and putting a hand on the arm of the sofa, like she’s steadying herself.

Scorpius lifts the book up so she can see. “It’s about Memory Charms. Did you know there are lots of different types? Ones that make you remember things as well as the ones that make you forget. You can take a memory and make it so it never fades away or dies. Isn’t that cool? I wish I could do that to remember everything in all these books… There’s so much to remember.” He looks around at the library and sighs. His mum ruffles his hair.

“You know an awful lot without using Memory Charms, Scorpius. Sometimes I think you know more than me!”

Scorpius pulls a face. “That isn’t possible. You’re my mum. You know everything.”

Astoria laughs. “I don’t know about everything, but I do know some things. I know the rain has stopped, and your father has been telling me you were bored while you were cooped up in here.” She perches on the sofa arm, and Scorpius looks up at her, at the light spilling across her face.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says, and her hazel eyes look so sad, like all those muddy puddles that have been drowning the garden for the last few weeks. “I’m sorry I haven’t been well. But I’m feeling a little better now, and it’s nearly summer, so we’ll be able to go outside a lot more. In fact, I was wondering if you’d like to go for a walk now?”

Scorpius looks between her and his book, and there isn’t really a choice to be made. He sets the book aside and gets up. “Of course I do. It’s still wet outside though. Should I wear my wellies?”

His mum grins. “Yes you should. You won’t be able to jump in the puddles otherwise.”

 

They go down to the river. It’s still a little slippery underfoot, with plenty of puddles for Scorpius to splosh through, but it’s a lot drier than it was. The river is a swirling, ferocious torrent racing through the forest, but the paths are clear, and the banks are covered in lush green foliage and flowers. So many little blue flowers, all growing alongside the river, enough of them they look like a thick carpet.

“Do you know what these are?” Astoria asks, crouching down next to them and gently picking a couple of the tiny flowers.

Scorpius crouches beside her and shakes his head. “No. But they’re pretty.”

“They’re Forget-me-nots,” she tells him. “And these are special ones. They’re called Scorpion Grass.”

“That’s like my name,” Scorpius says, grinning around at the flowers which cover the banks with bright blue as far as he can see down the river before it twists away.

“It’s just like your name.” His mum takes one of the flowers and tucks it into his hair, just behind his left ear.

He reaches up and touches it. “You know about flowers. What do they mean?”

She looks at him. “They’re one of my favourites. They mean loyalty and undying love, and they help you remember people after they’re gone, all the happy times you had together.”

“Just like the Memory Charm I was reading about,” Scorpius says brightly, running a hand through a cluster of the Scorpion Grass. The petals are still speckled with rain drops and his hand comes back wet. “Only you don’t have to do magic to get these. They just grow here. Maybe each one can be a different memory, look.” He picks a bunch of Forget-me-nots and holds them up for his mum to see. “This one is the book I was reading earlier; this one is the rainbow I saw the other day when it was raining really hard; this one is when you taught me that dance that made my feet all tied up in knots-”

“The foxtrot?” His mum asks with a laugh. “It isn’t that hard is it?”

“Not any more. I can do it now. But shush,” he gives her the sort of stern look she always gives him when he won’t stop talking. “I’m trying to remember.”

She covers her mouth with her hand, shoulders shaking with silent laughter, eyes gleaming. “Sorry, go on.”

“Thank you,” he says, sarcastically polite. “This one is… that time you were really well for a while and you and Dad were really happy; this one is when you taught me how to read. I don’t remember it very well but it was important. And then this one can be today.” He looks up at his mum and holds out the flowers to her.

For a moment she looks at them, the trees overhead casting shadows over her face. When she reaches out to take them her hand is shaking slightly. “That’s perfect,” she says, voice a little quiet and unsteady.

Scorpius looks at her hand, frowning. “Are you cold? Maybe we should go inside. I don’t think Dad would want-”

His mum reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. “No, sweetheart. I’m okay. Don’t worry. Maybe we should keep walking though? It is a little chilly.”

Scorpius gets to his feet and takes her hand to help her up. He doesn’t let go when they set off walking down the river. It’s been years since he last held her hand, he’s too old for that now, except maybe he isn’t because now he doesn’t want to let go. He holds on tightly, and fully intends to keep holding on, because maybe that way he’ll get to keep her safe and well and happy forever.

 

There’s a tangle of Forget-me-nots on the coffin. Bright blue against the murky brown wood. They help you remember people after they’re gone, she’d said. But remembering hurts. It aches; it makes the tears well up inside him, hot and thick and sickening. He wants to rip the memories out of his head and forget.

Except he doesn’t. She was his mum. She was everything. And he still wants to hold onto her forever, because the idea of losing any part of her that might still linger hurts him even more than her memory does.

 

It’s May and the riverbank is in full bloom. Sunlight dapples warm and gold through the leafy branches. Bright blue Scorpion Grass tangles and trails down from the path into the water. It’s a perfect day, and Scorpius walks through it with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets. He hasn’t been down here in ages, but the April showers have recently ceased, and while he’s home for the weekend and his dad is busy he’d thought he might as well.

Nearly three years have passed since his mum died, and it still feels like an open wound. There are days when it’s so raw he just wants to curl up and cry, or just lie still in the darkness and do nothing at all. But there are also days when he thinks he’s okay, and this is one of those. He wouldn’t be here otherwise.

He sits down beside the path and lets his legs sink into the thick growth of Forget-me-nots. He runs his hands through the flowers, over the delicate petals, and picks a couple. The worst thing about time passing is that memories fade. He remembers when he was little and he’d complained that he couldn’t remember everything from all the books in the library, but now there are more important things he’s losing.

Sometimes he struggles to remember the exact nuances of his mum’s voice. He used to hear it echoing in his head all the time, like she was right next to him, but now he has to screw his eyes shut and put his fingers in his ears when he’s trying to remember the way she sounded. Her voice is fading from his memory and he hates it.

There’s more, too. He’s starting to forget so many of the happy memories he’d been so carefully trying to preserve. The times they would dance together or read together or walk by this river together are all blurring into an indistinct mess in his brain. He can’t pick out the individual moments, the words they said, the different quirks of his mum’s smile. It’s just a block of happy and nice, which isn’t good enough. Not when the sad and awful is so fresh and each individual terrible memory is a separate sharp shard of ice in his heart.

He curls in on himself, hugging himself round the middle, staring at the rushing eddies of the river. It isn’t boiling along wildly today, but it’s still brown and uninviting. This isn’t a day for swimming.

As he sits there he twirls a Forget-me-not between his fingers. It spins round and round, flashing blue and little specks of yellow. He remembers when he was younger, picking some and giving them to his mum. He’d said they meant things, different memories, but it’s been too long and he doesn’t remember what he’d said to her. Maybe there had been one about dancing… And another about a time when she’d been well and happy…

He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear and stares at the little flower. That day he’d been reading a book, a book about Memory Charms. Obliviate, he can do that one now, and others. Charms to restore memories. To preserve them. That’s one of the other charms he’s learned. Reminiscor, which lets you bring to mind your deepest memories and save them, keep them safe and whole, so you can’t forget.

Reminiscor. He goes over the word in his head, goes over the way you’re supposed to say it, the way you’re supposed to direct your wand, a steady sweep across your forehead. His wand is in his pocket now, and he’s not supposed to use magic in the holidays, but…

With trembling fingers he draws it and holds it in his lap. Out here, away from the house, with nothing but Scorpion Grass and river water for company, no one would even know. Steadily he raises his wand. There are too many things he needs to not forget. Too much has already gone and he won’t lose anymore.

“Reminiscor,” he says over the rush of the river. Instantly a memory fades into view before his eyes. He must be four years old, and his mum is showing him the shapes of the letters and how to read them. He traces them with his finger, getting used to the way they feel under his hands. Together they make up a little song to remember what each other the letters stands for.

He takes a shuddering breath and waves his wand again. “Reminiscor.” It must be winter because there’s a deep, white blanket of snow outside. It’s dark, so he can only see it by the light falling from his bedroom window. His mum appears in the doorway, wrapped up in a dressing gown.

“You should be sleeping.”

His younger self looks round at her. “It’s snowed. Can I go outside and run in it? Quickly? Please? It might melt.”

“It won’t melt before-” His mum sighs. “You’re going to put a proper coat and boots on. And when you get back in you’re going straight to bed, understand?”

His younger self whoops and runs to hug her.

Scorpius grins to himself. He hadn’t gone straight to bed afterwards. He’d lain awake for hours, too excited to sleep. And he’d had a cold the next day.

“Reminiscor.”

Him and both his parents crouched beside the river, watching thousands of baby toads hop away into the undergrowth.

“Reminiscor.”

His younger self peeking round the ballroom door to see his mum and dad dancing together, hair flying, smiles bright, hands held tightly.

“Reminiscor.”

His Hogwarts letter finally arriving and their smiles of pride.

“Reminiscor.”

His mum meeting him off the Hogwarts Express and swallowing him up in a hug.

“Reminiscor.” “Reminiscor.” “Reminiscor.”

There are a thousand memories now he’s started looking for them. He conjures them into his mind where they dance like fireflies, little sparks of a past he can never get back because she’s gone, and there’s only himself and his dad left, and it just isn’t the same.

He casts the spell over and over again until his head is aching and he’s overwhelmed by a flood of thoughts. Too vivid and bright and warm. Too much to handle. He buries his face in his hands, wand falling into the blanket of flowers beside him, and, as he remembers his mum laughing at one of his more ridiculous jokes, he starts to cry.

A wash of tears that he can’t contain anymore. Hot and prickly, leaking down his cheeks. They drip off the end of his nose and through his fingers, soak into his jeans, and water the petals of the Forget-me-nots. His whole body shakes and he folds himself into a tiny ball. He rakes his hands through his hair; hugs himself tightly, clutching at his shoulders; feels like he’s imploding. Collapsing in on himself until all that’s left is his heart and his memories.

The river cascades unrelentingly past as he sits there. The Forget-me-nots wave in the breeze, and a swallow darts around near the bride, chasing dragonflies. He sobs into his hands as a blackbird sings. All the memories swirl around inside his head like muddy water after too much rain.

But he’s grateful for them. He didn’t think he could remember so much of her, but all his memories, all the best memories, the happiest, most brilliant ones, are all here. He’s captured them, and if the spell has worked they won’t fade now. He’ll have them forever. And that feels like pure relief.

He drops his hands down into the curling tangle of Scorpion Grass and trails his fingers through it, feeling every petal and stem. When he was younger he wanted to keep her safe and well and happy forever, and he couldn’t do that. But he can do this. He can keep all those memories and cherish them. He can never forget her.

He sniffs and wipes his eyes on his sleeve, then he picks another Forget-me-not and looks at it for a moment before tucking it into his hair, behind his left ear.

“I’m going to remember,” he says, determined, a promise to her, and to himself. “I am.”

For several more minutes he sits in the bed of flowers, going through the memories again, slowly and carefully, paying them all close attention. Then, finally, he picks up his wand and gets to his feet. He checks the flower is still in place before turning away from the river and walking back to the house where his dad is probably waiting for him.


End file.
